President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday approved the Aadhar Ordinance that allows voluntary use of Aadhaar as ID proof for obtaining mobile SIM cards and opening bank accounts. The ordinance was necessitated after a bill to amend the Aadhaar Act after getting its nod from Lok Sabha set to lapse with the dissolution of the current Lok Sabha.

With the Approval of Aadhar Ordinance from the President, anyone not offering Aadhar cannot be denied any service, be it opening of a bank account or purchasing a new SIM connection.

Last week, The Union Cabinet cleared Aadhar Amendment Bill Through ‘Ordinance’. With the Ordinance, Minors will have an option to withdraw from the biometric system of Aadhaar on attaining 18 years of age. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will then have to delete all the information of the person from its database.

Informing about the promulgation, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday said, “Voluntary use of Aadhaar will be considered on Aadhaar number on either electronic or physical form. Any entity that takes Aadhaar will follow the privacy standards. Aadhaar can be used on a voluntary basis for KYC documents for Telegraph Act & PMLA” as reported by news agency ANI.

Union Law Minister R S Prasad: Voluntary use of Aadhaar will be considered on Aadhaar number on either electronic or physical form. Any entity that takes Aadhaar will follow the privacy standards. Aadhaar can be used on voluntary basis for KYC documents for Telegraph Act & PMLA. pic.twitter.com/bgvzT8H4oG

With the Ordinance, telecom service providers, apart from using Aadhaar for authentication, can also opt for off-line verification, use of a passport, or any other officially valid document or modes of identification as notified by the Central Government to issue new connection to a consumer.

It also said that anyone not offering Aadhar cannot be denied any service, be it opening of a bank account or purchasing a new SIM connection.

The Ordinance will also omit the Section 57 of the Aadhar Act relating to the use of Aadhar by private entities. These changes have been brought up by amending the Aadhaar Act, Indian Telegraph Act and Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Lok Sabha had on January 6 passed the approved a bill to amend the Aadhaar Act and two related laws.

The Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill proposes changes in the Aadhaar Act, Indian Telegraph Act and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to comply with a Supreme Court judgment on September 26 last year, in which it upheld the constitutional validity of unique identification project with certain restrictions and changes.

The Highest Court on September 26 last year prohibited the mandatory use of Aadhaar-based KYC for mobile connections and bank accounts. Supreme Court in its 40-page verdict against a batch of petitions questioning the constitutional validity of the Aadhar Act, 2016 said that Aadhar act isn’t breaching anybody’s right to privacy.

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